


Death Scene

by Kizzykat



Category: Alexander (2004)
Genre: M/M, bad language, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 04:43:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4377629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kizzykat/pseuds/Kizzykat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Colin spends the night before filming Alexander's death scene in the studio</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Scene

Death scene by Kizzykat

Colin listened to the clunk of the last door closing, leaving him alone in the dark, cold Pinewood studio. The clunk echoed amongst the light fittings up in the rafters of the vast studio, all turned off now. All Colin had left were a couple of studio lamps around Alexander’s bed. Tomorrow was the last day of filming, Alexander’s death scene, and Colin had wanted to spend this last night alone to prepare.

He wanted to spend the night alone with Alexander’s ghost, to digest the experiences of the last few months of hard and bruising work, and to say goodbye to Alexander. He’d lived with the man for so long now, he hoped he’d done him justice. And tomorrow he said goodbye to the king; the lonely, driven boy-king who never got to fully grow up.

Unless there were any damn pickups, Colin thought sourly as he sat down on the bed, sticking a cigarette between his lips. He narrowed his eyes, inhaling as he lit the cigarette. Surely to God Oliver had got all the footage he could possibly want, and probably hadn’t got the budget for any more.

He exhaled, raising his head to look around at the fretwork walls that were meant to represent Alexander’s Babylonian bedroom. He probably shouldn’t be smoking here, smelling everything up with unauthentic nicotine. God, it was cold in here, the frost outside seeping in once the lights were off and everyone had gone. He reached out and switched on the heater the production people had left him, pulling the thick red puffa jacket closer about himself.

Had he done Alexander justice? Oliver’s vision of the king had been of a young man who had searched the world to gain the unconditional love and approval of his parents, and had never really found it. Perhaps he had at least achieved a measure of self-acceptance when his father’s ghost appeared to him in India, approving his decision to turn for home, but it was not the real man’s approval. The real man had not understood his son, and his mother had simply seen him as a power cypher. Even Hephaestion’s unconditional love had not been enough to fill that void. And so he had betrayed and hurt Hephaestion with Bagoas and Roxanne. And still Hephaestion had loved him and stuck by him.

Loyal Hephaestion, who had been ready to die for his friend and his king.

Warmed, Colin lay back on the crimson and gold coverlet of Alexander’s bed, smoking slowly. He had tried to give his Alexander the sense of anxious striving Oliver had wanted. He could only go with Oliver’s artistic vision; he hadn’t done the studying Oliver had to arrive at that vision. He hoped his anxious Alexander would be convincing as a world conqueror. They had certainly filmed enough battle sequences to fill half a film, and to give Colin a sense of the sheer hard work involved in Alexander’s soldiering lifestyle.

He lay on the royal bed, finishing his cigarette, vague memories of filming drifting through his head: thundering across the Moroccan desert with a hundred horses behind him; riding against an elephant in Thailand; covered with fake gore and swinging his sword at opponents; kissing Angelina Jolie; larking about with Gary, Elliot and the guys; hugging Jared in those damned scenes that seemed to last forever. Those bloody hugs with Jared had begun to get a bit personal after the hundredth time.

Jared had been fun to work with. Basically a quiet, shy guy, he had a core of steel that made him rather special and unlike any one else Colin had ever worked with, especially amongst Americans. Yes, he wanted the fame thing like Colin did, but not at any cost, and only on his terms. He refused to trade on his good looks – and, God was he good looking – and earn a buck load by just doing a string of rom-coms. He wanted to do quality work, yet he had a mischievous sense of humour too. He wouldn’t mind if, in the hoopla of selling the film, Colin told the press that they had actually made out.

They hadn’t of course, but they had come close a couple of times. Colin wouldn’t have minded – just to see what Alexander and Hephaestion had.

The cigarette had almost burnt down to Colin’s fingers and he hastily stubbed it out in the ashtray by the bedside. He lay with his hand behind his head, musing and staring up at the partial ceiling constructed above the bed which supported an embroidered fabric fan depicting Ahura Mazda. Tomorrow they would film Alexander’s death on this bed. The last couple of days they had spent filming Alexander’s speech about the future beside Hephaestion’s death bed. They’d filmed Hephaestion’s death before that, so it had been a sombre few days. And now it was nearly over.

The thought made Colin feel empty, and a little lonely. There was always a sense of let down after the end of filming, a loss of purpose, a loss of the people you’d gotten to know. Colin became very aware of the vast emptiness of the studio, of the darkness and silence pressing down like a huge hand, and his breathing quickened. He moved his hand from behind his head and let it rest across the front of his jeans, moving it downwards slightly, taking reassurance from the warmth over his groin. He tightened his fingers, and then moved his hand away abruptly. He wasn’t about to have a wank here, it was too public, too indiscreet. There might even be security cameras running.

He turned on his side, wondering if he should get under the covers and try to sleep, half-wishing he’d thought to bring a bottle of something with him to while away the evening, out of ideas for communing with Alexander.

A cold shiver ran suddenly through Colin as though someone had walked over his grave and, spooked, he half-raised himself up, looking about as though he expected to see or hear his own ghost.

A cold draft seemed to swoop down though the studio like the passing of a giant wing. Anxious, Colin sat up on the edge of the bed, his arms rigid, listening intently. And the growing sense that he was not alone filled him. He could hear nothing, but he could feel it, he could sense it with the surety of an Irishman seeing ghosts. There was someone here.

He stood up. Movement caught his eye and he looked up to see the Ahura Mazda fan moving slightly. Feeling the hairs on his arms standing on end, he convinced himself that it was the hot air rising from the heater, and listened to the frozen silence surrounding him.

It was dark beyond his own little pool of light but he moved across the floor and stepped down through the doorway into a portion of Persian corridor. Beyond that, across the floor, were the dim grey shapes of covered cameras, chairs, tables, trailing wires, and the little cabin with banks of monitors Oliver used during filming. The further walls were invisible in the darkness, but Colin could sense nothing there.

Further down the studio though, back a bit from the set of Alexander’s bedroom, were the smaller sets for Hephaestion and Roxanne’s bedrooms. The crew had long since dismantled the balcony out the back of Alexander’s bedroom where Colin and Jared had spent hours gazing into each other’s eyes and hugging. But they had only just finished with these sets and hadn’t started dismantling them yet. Colin turned and headed towards them.

After a few yards, it was too dark to see sound boxes and technical equipment lying around on the floor, so he took out his lighter and held it up like a torch. It didn’t provide much illumination but it was enough to stop him banging his shins.

He stuck his head into Roxanne’s set, but nothing caught his attention there. It felt dead and disused. He swept his eyes over the glimmering of rich fabrics and wood, but it was all sham, painted to look better than it was, spray gold paint over plastic and plywood painted to look like ebony.

He withdrew and moved on to Hephaestion’s bedroom. He only had to step up onto the larger set to feel the denseness of a presence. He felt cold sweat on his palms as, his eyes growing adjusted to the dimmer light, he saw a hunched form on the other side of the bed.

Knowing he had been right, and half-suspecting he knew who it was, he moved nearer, and looked down at the figure.

“Jesus, Jared, what the fuck are you doing here?”

Jared’s eyes moved, catching the flamelight. He was sitting with his back against the wall, his forearms resting on his drawn up knees, his clasped hands before his face and his long hair spilling over the shoulders of the dark puffa jacket he was wearing. He pressed his thumbs against his mouth but didn’t speak. His face looked pale, eyes enormous, moving uncertainly. He looked like his own ghost.

“How long have you fucking been here?” Colin asked. He had a vague notion that Jared might have been here since they finished filming his death scene, but that was ridiculous. He must have been on set today in case Oliver needed him for background shots while Colin was doing his speech, though Colin didn’t recall seeing him.

Colin stared at him for a long moment, then lost patience, standing there like an idiot holding a cigarette lighter in the darkness. “You look bloody frozen,” he stated, moving forward. “Come on, there’s a heater over there. Here,” he put a hand under Jared’s arm, urging him up.

Jared moved stiffly and clambered to his feet as though he had been there a long time. Colin held out his hand in case he stumbled, relieved to find he had touched a solid body.

He shepherded Jared off the set, giving him a light push in the back to get him moving in the right direction when he seemed to falter. “You’re such a fecking goofy-arse, Jared,” he said. “Why didn’t you bloody tell anyone you were here?”

He figured Jared was doing what he was doing and saying goodbye to Hephaestion. Yet at times Jared got too intense and took things much too seriously. He seemed to lack some kind of off switch in trying to make dreams become real. And he was daft enough to be trying to imaging what it was like being dead – Hephaestion watching over Alexander’s death and waiting for him. A shiver ran up Colin’s spine.

Having got Jared into the circle of light and warmth, Colin abandoned him, sat on the bed and lit another cigarette. He was now a tiny bit annoyed with Jared, muscling in on his farewell to Alexander and making it about him too. Besides which, Jared was being all fey and distracted, staring slowly about the set with dreamlike eyes as though he’d never seen any of it before. He’d probably convinced himself he hadn’t – all part of the method acting crap. But it was like he wasn’t wholly there, and when Colin stole a glance at him, the twilight beyond the lamps made him look disturbingly absent.

“Jared, fucking get over here and get warm,” he said.

Jared ignored him, turned and began to wander about the set. That was more like Jared. Colin knew him well enough by now to know that he hated to be told what to do and had a cussed streak that would make him do exactly the opposite.

Colin tried to ignore him too, but he hadn’t anything else to do except smoke his cigarette and stare at the heater. He craned his head over his shoulder to see what he was doing now. He was wandering about touching and picking things up. He ran his fingers over Alexander’s weapons laid out on a couch by the door and then Colin watched him pick up a small pottery jar from a table. He sniffed it, apparently trying to see what it contained, then upended it to see if anything came out onto his palm. Of course nothing did.

“What the fuck are you doing? You’re giving me the creeps, Jared. Stop wafting about like some bleeding ghost and fucking get over here.”

Jared turned his head and looked at him with something approaching normality, his long hair moving. Finally he spoke. “Just seeing how authentic it is.”

“It’s a fucking movie set, for Christ’s sake. What do you expect?”

Jared wandered nearer, his long, jean-clad legs moving coltishly. “It’s ours now.”

Colin frowned at him, not sure what he was talking about.

Jared sat on the end of the bed. He was wearing some kind of billowy white shirt beneath the unzipped puffa jacket, a glimpse of bare chest showing. There was some kind of cord hanging from his neck, hidden by the shirt. Colin registered the sexiness; and thought Jared must be immune to the damned cold.

“It feels more real now, without everyone here,” Jared said, rubbing his hands together and putting them between his knees in a final admission of cold. Colin sat there with a cigarette between his fingers with his elbows on his thighs by the heater. “As though it belongs to us; to Alexander.”

Colin shrugged non-committally and took a final drag on his cigarette before turning and stubbing it out in the ashtray. He felt the bed move as Jared reclined on one elbow. He turned to look and Jared was staring up at him with opalescent, intensely blue eyes. It was as though a light were shining through them. His shirt gaped open to reveal the honeyed skin and curve of the hollow of his shoulder.

“He’s still here,” Jared said softly, touching his fingertips to his bare chest. The white shirt was made of a crepe material that looked vaguely familiar as Colin watched, mesmerised. “Hephaestion. He’s still alive. He won’t let me go while Alexander’s still here. He’s waiting for you.”

Without a thought in his head, Colin stared at him. A chancer by nature, he recognised an invitation and without stopping to consider, he took it. He took possession of Jared’s mouth with his own, kissing him deeply with all the pent-up emotions of months of pretending to be in love with him.

As Jared responded and kissed him back, Colin moved onto the bed and pushed him down onto the scarlet and gold. He laid his body against Jared’s, resting his weight on one elbow as he slid the other hand where he had wanted to, under Jared’s shirt, caressing the muscled rise of his chest, his fingertips finding the vulnerable softness beneath the armpit, against the ribs. Pinned flat beneath him, Jared moved slightly. Not sure if he was okay with this, Colin broke contact and looked down at Jared, his lips wet and reddened.

Jared stared up at him, his eyes bright with a touch of innocent fear. Colin’s heart misgave him: Jared looked so damn vulnerable, he almost moved off him, but he could feel his body’s heat against his own.

“Sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” Jared breathed. Colin knew Jared wasn’t one to chicken out of anything. He decided he wanted to go for this: it had been hanging in the air between them for so long, now it was time it came to fruition.

“Ok,” Colin said and moved in to kiss him again, slower and gentler this time. He touched Jared’s cheek with his hand, but Jared moved and slid his hand under Colin’s jacket, round his ribs and across his back. He tightened his embrace.

Colin pressed more of his weight against Jared’s shoulder and chest, moving his hand to Jared’s ribs inside his jacket, feeling the bone through the thin fabric which he now knew resembled the night shirt from Hephaestion’s death scene. Trust Jared to do that. He moved his hand across Jared’s waist and belly button and, when Jared didn’t protest, moved his thigh across Jared’s.

Jared’s hands were exploring too: Colin’s waist, chest, neck as he kissed Colin with growing abandon. Colin exerted pressure upwards with his thigh against Jared’s groin, his leg dropping between Jared’s. Leaning on him, Colin moved his hand and cupped Jared’s crotch. When he didn’t flinch or move away, Colin squeezed. Hard. Jared moaned against his mouth.

“What are you doing?” demanded a man’s voice from beside the bed. It was high and angry.

Colin shot off the bed next to the heater.

“Jesus fucking Christ! Who the hell are you? How the fuck did you get in here?” he demanded of the fair-haired man standing on the other side of the bed. He was wearing Greek costume, his fists on his hips where a heavy gold belt hung, his elbows spreading wide a deep crimson, heavy cloak. Not a big man, but threatening. He wasn’t a guy you wanted to mess with, Colin noted, not a tin soldier or an actor at all.

But the man didn’t even deign to notice him. He was staring down with anger at Jared, who had raised himself up onto his elbows, his shirt open in disarray and his hair falling behind him. Colin noticed that he was wearing Hephaestion’s medallion, and he was looking up at the stranger with a mixture of condescension and annoyance. He didn’t look at all frightened or surprised by this sudden appearance.

“What are you doing here?” he asked the stranger, mildly enough but with an edge to his voice. He sat up deliberately, like a cat deciding whether or not to be annoyed at being disturbed.

“Who the fuck are you?” Colin demanded, mirroring the man’s stance with his hands on his hips, his jacket open. “What the fuck do you want?”

The man finally looked at him from under his brows. “Shut your mouth,” he snarled, and Colin’s fight responses kicked in as he stepped forward angrily.

But Jared had uncoiled from the bed and stood, his hands out pacifyingly towards the stranger. He looked over his shoulder at Colin and said firmly, “Do.” He gave Colin a long look that said he had got this, and Colin subsided slightly.

Colin watched as Jared turned back to the man, his head high, his hands dropped. “Why are you here?” he asked. A change had come over him, a sharpening as though knives had been drawn. It wasn’t like the Jared Colin thought he knew.

The stranger, boyish but no longer a boy, all power and command as though taking charge was written in his blood, gave a slight shake of his head. “Don’t dance for him, Hephaestion,” he said thickly.

“Don’t?” Jared asked, stepping forward with a dangerous dip of his head. “Don’t?” he repeated, anger mounting in his voice.

“No. I don’t want you to.” He looked like a tawny cat gathering power in its haunches before it struck. He advanced on Jared, who stepped towards him, tall and unafraid and strung like a bow with anger.

“I will do as I will,” Jared said, his voice taut. “As you do.”

“No, you won’t!” cried the stranger, lunging forward and striking Jared’s shoulders with the heels of his hands.

“Hey!” Colin yelled, stepping forward, a hand out, fingers slayed. “I don’t know what the hell is going is going on here, or who the fuck you think you are, but Jared can do what the fuck he wants!” His head was cocked as the man turned his head tightly and looked at him under his brows. His eyes were brown as Colin’s own, but big and shining with intense anger.

Leading with his shoulders, he advanced on Colin. “You are nothing,” he hissed. “You mean nothing. To him, or to me.”

“Colin, fuck off out of this!” Jared said, moving quickly to get between them. “You don’t know what this is about.”

“Yes, I do! Your gay-boy here is having a hissy fit because his boyfriend’s cheating on him!”

The stranger stopped. “You insult me?” he said his voice low and dark.

“You’re fucking right I do, whoreson!”

“Colin, shut the fuck up!”

The stranger stepped forward like a cat advancing on its prey, a stream on insults pouring from his lips, his arm outstretched to fend off Jared as though he wasn’t there. “You misbegotten spawn of a filthy bitch that crawled out of a black bog to birth you, crawl back to suckle at her dried-up teats, or I will make you.”

At the mention of a bog, Colin’s sight went red and he launched himself at the stranger. Colin was not an experienced fighter, nor a vicious one. His intention, whether or not he was aware of it, was to knock the man over and pummel a bit of sense into him, but not to inflict any real damage. In this he miscalculated.

He launched himself at the man’s midriff, but aimed a bit too high and failed to knock him over. The man was as strong as a rock and barely staggered as Colin’s weight hit him and Colin wrapped his arms around his ribs. He clasped his hands together and brought both fists down hard at the soft juncture of Colin’s neck and shoulder. Colin dropped like a stone to the ground.

For a moment he thought he was dying at the burst of pain in his head and shoulder, and he lay stunned on the cold floor. He began to writhe and gasp as he tried to draw a breath that didn’t hurt. He heard voices shouting, then hands on him as Jared pulled him over onto his back and stared down at him.

“Feckin’ ejjit,” Jared hissed at him. “I was trying to make him mad at me; not at you.” With a shove, Jared let go of him, got up and disappeared from Colin’s line of sight again.

Coughing as he tried to get a breath, Colin rolled over again and got his knees under him. With his hands, he pushed himself up, feeling the burning of the bruise on his neck. He coughed again as he put a hand to it, and looked around the room. Jared came back from the doorway.

“He’s right on the edge,” he said, coming back to Colin. He looked agitated. “I think you may have pushed him over.”

“To what?” Colin croaked, rubbing his neck as Jared paced away from him again.

“Despair,” Jared said bleakly, still pacing about like he wasn’t sure what to do. “I was trying to give him something to fight for.”

“So you used me?” Colin said in a voice that still wasn’t his own.

Jared came back to him. He planted a kiss full on Colin’s mouth, his hand on his cheek. He drew his hand gently down Colin’s cheek as he pulled back, looking into Colin’s eyes. “I care for you,” he said, “but he is my whole world.”

Colin just stared back at him as Jared said, suddenly brisk, “I’ve got to find him.”

“Where’d he go?” Colin called as Jared moved to the doorway.

“I don’t know. He should be here: unless he’s already gone.” And then he was gone too into the darkness.

Colin stared after him, frowning and thoroughly confused. Had he somehow just conjured up Alexander? And had Jared become Hephaestion? Or was he just dreaming?

He stopped rubbing his neck and marched towards the doorway. There was one way to find out, and that was to go after them. He stepped down into the semi-darkness and marched straight towards the nearest green lit sign of a man running that marked a fire-exit. He had to make a detour around a bank of lighting equipment in the darkness but he hit the bar hard and swung open the heavy metal door.

It was like stepping through a door into another world. There was light: orange street lamps glowed through the thin frosty fog, which turned to a grey white the tarmac and kerbstones, and the warehouse-sized studio buildings looming against the blackness of the night. Colin looked around uncertainly at the cold and empty space as he stood out on the pavement, uncertain which way to go.

A security guard walked around a corner of the building with an Alsatian on a short chain leash. The dog was focused on Colin, ears pricked and tense on the leash. The guard’s truncheon had come up warily at the sight of Colin. They came nearer and the man obviously recognised Colin.

“Everything alright, Mr Farrell?” he asked, stopping out of the reach of the dog.

“You didn’t see two men about here, did you?” Colin asked, already sure the answer would be no.

“No. If there’s anyone about, the dog would have heard them. Have you seen someone?”

“No, no, I must have imagined it.”

“Are you sure? Do you want me to come in and have a look about?”

“No, thanks. It’s not necessary. I must have dozed off.”

“If you’re sure. Are you going back inside, Mr Farrell? Because if you are, I’ll let the dog off: He’ll soon ferret anyone out.”

“Don’t hurt them – if you find anyone.”

“The dog is well trained, Mr Farrell.”

“Give me five minutes then. I need a bit of fresh air.”

“Very well. I’ll take a walk around the block. But I need to let the dog off and give him a run.”

Colin nodded and fished out his fags as the man and dog walked past. His hands were trembling slightly as he lit the cigarette, cupping his hands around the thing to get it lit. He took a long drag and tipped his head back, looking around warily as he exhaled, feeling a little of the tension ebb out of him. He still didn’t know what was going on, but he was beginning to feel maybe a bit of a fool.

He smoked his fag rapidly, the cold air biting at him, and threw the stub on the ground. He ground it out with his foot, turned sharply and went back inside, banging the door shut after himself. It felt comparatively warm, dark and enclosed, and somehow friendly inside. He walked towards the set, determined to throw himself on the bed and sleep. He’d had enough of tonight.

He walked towards the glow emanating from the light inside Alexander’s bedroom. As he neared the steps, Jared stepped out of the dimness in front of him.

“Where’d you go?” he asked quietly with a soft smile on his face; pure Jared.

Colin looked at him, with his long hair tucked inside the dark, thick puffa jacket. There was no kohl on his eyes, and it was just Jared.

Silently, Colin caught his arm, turned him about and walked him up the blue-edged steps into Alexander’s bedroom. He let him go and shut the lattice doors behind them, closing them in.


End file.
